Ashante Burgess died Wednesday shortly after arriving at a hospital, where doctors said her temperature was 108 degrees.
Police also charged Nakia Burgess, 28, with cruelty to children. The woman's attorney, Phinia Aten, said her client left Ashante in the car because she couldn't find affordable day care.
The attorney said Ashante was playing with a chalkboard the first time Burgess checked on her. Burgess found her daughter unconscious around noon, less than 90 minutes after arriving to work as a transcriptionist.
"She is extremely remorseful about what happened. This was her only child," Aten said. "At this point, her life has no meaning to her."
Burgess wept during a brief hearing Thursday and was placed on suicide watch at the Atlanta-Fulton County Jail.
The high temperature in Atlanta was 85 on Wednesday, but temperatures inside closed cars can climb 40 degrees higher. The windows were cracked, but the car was exposed to the sun, police said.
Burgess was supposed to start the temporary job Monday, but had trouble finding child care, her attorney said. She was given an ultimatum to show up Wednesday or lose the job, Aten said.
Child care often kept Burgess from working, especially because some day care providers could not take a child with special needs, Aten said.
"Looking at it now, of course she would have tried different things, but certainly she had no intention of losing her daughter," Aten said. "We're not pointing fingers, but at this point, more investigation needs to be done before the blame is placed on Nakia."
Neighbors called Burgess a "very good mother."
"You could tell she loved her child," said Darline Philpott, a retired police officer. "I know this will destroy her."
Philpott said Burgess was a very attentive mother -- playing with Ashante in the back yard, singing to her in the bathtub, carrying her from the car to the house.
"I am very hard on child abuse, but this girl I can't honestly find any fault with. She must've made a sincere error in judgment," Philpott said.
Burgess moved to Georgia from the Trenton, N.J., area in February. She had been living with her sister and earning money through temporary jobs and Ashante's Social Security disability payments -- from $50 to $100 a month.
Ashante died one day after the death of a Macon infant whose mother left her in a hot car for four hours last weekend. Eight-month-old Reagan Gray had been on life support since she was found Sunday in a parking lot.
Her mother, Sherrie Davis Gray, told police she thought she had taken her baby to a relative's house before she went to work. Charges have not been filed in that case. You can join Unsolved Mysteries and post your own mysteries or
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